


The Seduction of Maria Bullworth

by onstraysod



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Cruelty, F/M, Revenge, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 02:14:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12738930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: Thwarted in his efforts to acquire a rare piece of art, Henry Lascelles fixes his mind upon a particular kind of revenge.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of a fic originally completed in September 2016. It was accidentally deleted - either through my own clumsiness or through some technical glitch - this past February or March when I came in to delete an unfinished fic. Due to difficult personal circumstances, this is the first opportunity I've had to return to AO3 and get it reposted. To vicivefallen and to everyone who told me how much they enjoyed this story, I apologize profusely for taking so long.
> 
> There's no need to leave comments if you did so when it was originally posted: I read them and cherished them all at the time. Many thanks to everyone who contacted me and told me they missed this story.
> 
> Dedicated to **vicivefallen** , who I hope is still a fan of _Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell_ , and of Henry Lascelles in particular.

Henry Lascelles was a connoisseur of beauty. He surrounded himself with it, collected beautiful things wherever they could be found: in galleries and showrooms, in shops and private auctions, in the bedchambers of fashionable houses when the curtains were drawn and the man of the house was away. There was no question in his mind that such beauty was his natural right, nor that there was any better place for such things to reside than at his house in Bruton Street, decorating some wall or shelf or pedestal, or laying beneath his sheets. The sculpture of Persephone, created by a late Renaissance artist of some note, was no exception. Ever since he had first seen the announcement of it in the auction house's catalog - "a extraordinary treasure," the description had read, "a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition" - he had desired it. The fluid, creamy lines of the marble - the half-recumbent pose of the shapely young woman, naked to the waist, extending one arm toward the heavens in a desperate plea for rescue from the clutches of her chthonic suitor - would more than compliment the exquisite pieces already displayed in his sitting room. He had already purchased a pedestal on which Persephone could repose, and in his anticipation for her Lascelles often lapsed into a daydream about the moment when she would be his and his alone: when he might run his nimble fingers over the curve of her hips, trace the perfect roundness of her smooth, sculpted breasts.

When the day of the auction arrived and he was outbid for the sculpture, Lascelles's wrath was extreme. The successful buyer had sent a proxy, a solicitor, and Lascelles pursued the man when he left the gallery, managing - save for a grinding of his teeth - to hold his anger in check beneath his gentlemanly facade.

"I must know the name of your client, sir," he told the solicitor, stopping him on the sidewalk. "I wish to send him my congratulations on so excellent an acquisition."

"That is most kind of you, sir. But I am afraid it is quite impossible. Confidentiality is the hallmark of every transaction I undertake for my clients, and seeing as how you were the foremost competitor for this piece..."

"Ah! You mistake my intentions entirely, my good man," Lascelles interrupted with a charming smile. "I do not wish to pursue the sculpture any further, it is fairly won. Indeed, it is simply that I recognize in your client a gentleman - I do presume - of the most refined tastes, and as I am looking to sell several of my late Renaissance pieces - small paintings, mostly - I thought perhaps he might be interested in making other valuable additions to his collection...?"

Now the solicitor's aspect changed from suspicion to avid interest. "That is a possibility," he conceded.

"My name is Henry Lascelles and I reside in Bruton Street - the gallery has my address. Please - have your client contact me at his earliest convenience. I am quite certain that we can come to some mutually beneficial arrangement."

Then, with a polite tip of his hat, Lascelles took his carriage back to his house: back to the sitting room with its empty pedestal and the priceless paintings and sculptures that now seemed rather lackluster, pining for the absent Persephone. He called for wine and paced in his shirtsleeves while he drank, plotting the revenge he would take on the wretch who had thwarted his designs, yet unsure of the nature the punishment would take.

Three weeks later - three weeks in which Lascelles's anger had rather grown more bitter than cooled - a letter arrived at Bruton Street from Northamptonshire. His manservant brought it into the drawing room at the very same time as Christopher Drawlight was paying a call.

"And that was when I told the Countess-- I said, my dear I would never have allowed my tailor to pair such a shade of blue with that buttercup yellow! It was most garish and did nothing for her complexion and-- Oh but Henry, you aren't even listening to my story!" Drawlight whined. "What is that letter that has you so diverted?"

A smile had twisted the corners of Lascelles's lips as he perused the paper in his hand. "Just a matter of business."

"Oh." Drawlight sighed out the word wearily: nothing could be more boring than business. Yet presently Lascelles looked up from the letter and fixed him with an inquiring stare.

"Tell me Christopher - for you are a walking repository of knowledge about anyone with the means to loan you money - have you any knowledge of a George Bullworth of Apple Hill in Northamptonshire?"

Drawlight ignored the aspersion cast on his finances and instead narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. "Bullworth... Bullworth.. Why, yes indeed! I met a George Bullworth of Northamptonshire about six months or so ago, at Lady Marlborough's last soiree. Yes, yes. A middle-aged gentleman, very wealthy. Land and sheep, I believe."

Lascelles tapped the refolded letter thoughtfully upon the palm of one hand. "Scandals of any kind? Gambling debts, perhaps? A daughter seduced by a foreigner, son off living a dissipated life with poets or something of that sort?"

"Oh no!" Drawlight laughed. "A most respectable man, and dull as dishwater. No children that I can think of, but... Oh yes! I remember now! He is not long married - it was the talk of the soiree as I recall. A young wife of some property, though not nearly equal to his. But a rare beauty they did say."

Lascelles had been pacing again; at this information he turned slowly on his heel to face Drawlight. "Indeed? A rare beauty?"

"Quite exquisite by all accounts. Bullworth was terribly besotted." Drawlight toyed with his lorgnette, obviously trying - and failing - to mask the eagerness of his curiosity. "Why, pray tell, do you ask?"

Lascelles was smiling again. "I have a score to settle with this Bullworth, as it happens."

"Ooh!" Drawlight positively squealed. "Revenge! How delicious. What will it be, Henry? Pistols at dawn?"

"Don't be absurd. I have no wish to end the man's life. That would quite defeat my purpose."

"Which is?"

Lascelles stroked his lips thoughtfully with the tip of a long, elegant finger. "He took something from me that I much desired. So I shall take something of great value from him. Something that he will regret the loss of for the remainder of his miserable days."

Drawlight squirmed with excitement. "Oh Henry! You are so very cunning. How will you achieve it?"

Lascelles waved the letter. "Bullworth has expressed interest in purchasing several of my pieces. He has invited me to his estate in Northamptonshire, provided I am willing to sell."

"But - you are not willing to break up your collection, surely?"

"What is the loss of a few paintings compared to the sweetness of revenge? Besides--" Lascelles smirked. "I shall return with something far more rare and valuable."

"What is it you have in mind?" Drawlight asked. "A prize racehorse, perhaps? A rare gem? No, wait - I have it!" His hands fluttered excitedly. "The lost will of a distant relation which, if contested, will make you the true heir to his vast fortune!"

"You have been reading too many novels, Christopher, and as usual your imagination outpaces your wit. What I shall take from Bullworth shall wound him far more than any of those things ever could."

Drawlight was so used to receiving insults from Lascelles that he made no attempt to address it. "Is there any way in which I might assist your designs? Oh do say yes, Henry! I have no invitations at all and I feel so very dull!"

"There might be something you can do," Lascelles conceded. "But for the most part I have everything I need to achieve my ends."

"Indeed?"

Lascelles turned away and walked over to stand in front of the full length mirror that hung on the west wall. With an approving eye he looked over his lithe figure: his pale, shapely hands; the perfect curve of his calf muscles in his white silk stockings; the length of his torso, and the fine tailoring of his close-fitting breeches that displayed none too subtly the particular wealth with which nature had endowed him. "Yes, Christopher. Yes indeed."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lascelles arrives at the Bullworth estate and anticipates just how pleasurable his act of revenge will be.

Several more letters were exchanged, terms were set and dates arranged, and a little less than a month later Henry Lascelles arrived at Apple Hill in Northamptonshire. The house itself was a pleasant surprise: modern and elegant, not the moldering ruin of a former century he had half feared to find. The owner, however, was everything that Lascelles had expected and hoped him to be. In late middle age, with a significant paunch and a conspicuous lack of hair, Bullworth was a ruddy-cheeked conservative bore in the expensive but drab clothes of a country squire. He greeted Lascelles with great cordiality and a kind of simple, blubbery good humor that had Lascelles secretly marveling at his luck. This whole project, he considered, might prove far easier than he could have dared to dream.

"Mr. Lascelles." Bullworth gripped his fingers in a slightly sweaty, meaty hand. "You are most welcome. No hard feelings about the sculpture, I trust?"

Lascelles's smile was perfectly easy. "None at all, sir. None at all."

But the wife-- If Lascelles had harbored one overriding concern, it was that Maria Bullworth would prove to be less the renowned beauty that she had been represented as being by the likes of Drawlight. Pretty, perhaps, by country standards, but by the standards of London society no morefetching than a tolerably clear-skinned pantry maid. Yet upon his entrance to the house he immediately discovered that his fears had been unfounded. Maria Bullworth - tall, slender yet shapely, with dark curls, cream-pale skin and flashing blue eyes - was a rare beauty indeed: a perfectly formed pearl to ornament a rich man's twilight years. As Lascelles took her hand - smooth and unlined - and bowed low over it, catching and holding her gaze, he was struck by something that felt almost like pity. The situation was comparable to giving Drawlight one of his most treasured paintings and allowing him to display it on the wall of his dingy rooms: this ravishing woman, locked away in a country manner with none but her husband's rheumy eyes to admire her.

Yes, Lascelles thought: it is almost mercy what I am about to do. To take the bird from its gilded cage and set it free. What happened to the bird once the door of the cage had been opened - whether it soared or plummeted to the ground due to clipped wings; whether it fattened on seeds and berries or starved - was really not his responsibility. The mercy - and all of the pleasure - would be in the act of liberation.

They took tea in a tastefully decorated sitting room, after which Lascelles was treated to a tour of the rooms that held Bullworth's extensive collection of art. It was, indeed, an impressive collection, composed of modern works and rare antiquities that - at any other time - would have caused Lascelles to seethe with envy. But while Bullworth pointed out a Chinese vase of some note, or a landscape done early in the career of a Flemish master, Lascelles's gaze kept wandering to the true masterpiece, a tingling of anticipation stirring in his groin. He traced the curve of Maria's hips beneath the draping pale rose muslin of her gown; he watched the way the fabric sagged into the secret hollow between her thighs when she stopped walking. He found the palms of his hands sweating with excitement as he followed the swell of her ample breasts on the crest of each breath and he licked his lips, wondering, trying to imagine the size and color of her nipples. Well, he would know soon enough. He would know their exact circumference and their flavor; he would know what kind of handhold her hips offered as she rode upon him. Several times she caught his gaze falling upon her and Lascelles fancied he saw a faint blush in her cheeks - yet there was, each time, the hint of a smile too. She liked to be admired. She wished to be worshiped. But had the worshiping ever been done correctly, Lascelles wondered. He doubted it. The merest hint of worship done by skillful hands and a talented tongue would make her his. The triumph was already so near he could taste it.

At supper she sat across from him, at her husband's right hand, the candlelight catching her blue eyes each time she glanced up demurely from her plate. Lascelles swirled his wine in his mouth, taking every opportunity to look away from Bullworth's trembling jowls to the far more appealing hills of Maria's breasts, white and firm and supple above the neckline of her pale blue gown. How fetching she would look with her thighs spread beneath him, he considered, as her husband's dull conversation made a droning background accompaniment to his lascivious thoughts. He shifted in his seat as his erection strained against his breeches. Yes, he had been imagining the sounds she would make when he was deep inside her - the little, desperate whimpers and moans that would bubble up from that long, white throat - the way she would paw and scratch and cling to his back. But it was not those images that made him ache with excitement. It was the picture of Bullworth standing, alone and bereft amid all his treasures, cognizant - somehow - that his lovely young wife was screaming her head off in another man's bed, that threatened to have Lascelles spending beneath the table.

"You have a very impressive collection, Mr. Bullworth," Lascelles commented while the servants cleared the first course and laid the second. "I am most grateful to you for allowing me to admire it."

"No, indeed Mr. Lascelles, the gratitude is all mine. It has been a long time since I have had an opportunity to converse on the subject of art with a man of such knowledge and taste. Which piece did you especially esteem?"

"As a guest in your house, I am not at all sure I should play favorites." Lascelles smoothly slid his glance from Bullworth to Maria. "I shall look to you, Mrs. Bullworth, for guidance. What is your favorite piece among your husband's collection?"

Maria opened her mouth but was interrupted by a greasy chuckle. "I am afraid you are wasting your time, Mr. Lascelles," Bullworth said. "Dear Maria knows nothing of art." There was an unmistakable spasm of the muscles in Maria's jaw at this, though she covered it with a gentle smile. "I bought that Persephone sculpture as a gift for her, you know. But I might as well have purchased a pretty necklace or some other gewgaw, for all she concerns herself with such things."

"Well, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel cannot be criticized for lacking knowledge of Michelangelo's _David_ ," Lascelles commented. Maria's gaze fell upon him, her eyes round and shining with reflected light.

"I am not sure that I understand you, Mr Lascelles."

"I only mean, my dear lady, that your husband asked me to name which of his masterpieces I most admired." Lascelles allowed the merest hint of a smile to raise one corner of his mouth. "There is nothing in this house that can match the unparalleled beauty of his wife."

"Aha!" Bullworth rapped upon the table with that meaty fist. "Very prettily said, Mr. Lascelles. Very prettily said." He reached for Maria's hand upon the white tablecloth and she laid it softly in his grasp, but her eyes remained fixed on Lascelles's face. A pinkish glow spread from her cheeks to her bosom, adding luster to her skin, and Lascelles noted the flutter of the pulse in her throat.

He almost fancied he could hear it: the click as the lock in the door of the birdcage started to turn.

When he retired a few hours later to his room, Lascelles rang for a maid. A young girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, answered his summons, curtsying shyly at the door.

"Ask your lady's maid to come to me when she's done with the evening's duties," he told her, reaching into his pocket and holding up a shiny guinea. "I shall make it worth your while, and her's as well."

"Of course, sir. But--" The girl hesitated. "She's that busy, sir. She might wish to know the reason."

"Simply tell her that I have a proposition to make." He pressed the coin into the girl's hand and waved her off, the next move in the game unfolding perfectly in his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lascelles puts his plan of seduction into play.

At breakfast the next morning Bullworth informed Lascelles that several of his favorite pieces were currently on loan to the local museum and that, if Lascelles had no objections, the three of them should plan on a trip to the village the following afternoon to see them.

"I regret that I am unable to take you today," Bullworth said. "But, alas, the rheumatism in my knee is plaguing me and I find I can scarcely walk without pain."

Maria caressed her husband’s arm soothingly. "You must rest. Do not distress yourself on Mr. Lascelles's account: I am quite a capable hostess and I am sure I can devise something to keep our guest entertained."

Lascelles caught her gaze over the rim of his teacup. "I place myself entirely in your hands, madam."

A subtle blush, a tiny flutter of the eyelashes. "Is there anything in particular you would like to do, Mr. Lascelles?" she asked. "Mr. Bullworth has an excellent library, if reading is to your tastes."

Lascelles could think of a great many things he would like to do with the lady of the house, but he made a show of pretending to consider the matter. Then - keeping Bullworth's malady in mind - he said: "The glimpse I got of your park and gardens as I was coming in yesterday was most impressive. I should very much like to see more." He glanced out the tall dining room windows. "It is a pleasant enough day for it, I believe.”

"That is a capital idea," Bullworth said. "You would not mind the exercise would you, Maria? And you should certainly show Mr. Lascelles the hothouse. Our gardener cultivates a rare orchid, Mr. Lascelles, that is quite worth seeing."

Lascelles smiled languidly. "You have a great many things worth seeing, Mr. Bullworth."

As soon as breakfast had ended, Lascelles excused himself, informing his host that he needed to write to an associate in London on pressing business. Bullworth had set the hour for their trip to the village the next day at eleven in the morning and Lascelles underlined the time twice with his quill before folding the short note, addressing it to an inn in the village, and ringing for a servant to give it to a kitchen boy to deliver to its destination posthaste.

"Don't disappoint me, Christopher," he murmured to himself as he watched the servant depart down the hall, letter in hand. "Put that lying tongue of yours to good use, and don't be late. Or the next thing I'll have mounted in my sitting room will be your head."

An hour later, Lascelles found himself alone at last with Maria Bullworth, meeting her on the terrace. The day was mild and she had but a light silk shawl draped over her arms. Her mint green dress complimented her skin, which shone like alabaster in the sunlight. They went first to the hothouse, following a winding footpath that led through the ornamental gardens closest to the manor. Of all his considerable talents, Lascelles counted his skills as a conversationalist as paramount. He was renowned in London society for his charm and wit, the easy way honeyed words slipped from his tongue, and his talent proved no less effective in Northamptonshire. Maria soon opened up like the petals of the summer flowers blooming in their neatly tended beds, laughing easily and often, and by the time they reached the little outbuilding he had discovered the identity of her favorite flowers - lilies; ascertained her opinions on subjects as diverse as carriages, dogs, and glove fabrics; and engaged her on the subject of the proper size of balls to ensure the comfort of all attendees.

“The orchid Hotchkiss grows is called Yellow and Purple Lady Slippers,” Maria told him as they entered the hothouse. “He tends them with more care than my nanny ever took with me. I have never seen a man more devoted.” She led Lascelles to the flowers, planted in pristine wooden boxes that had been arranged in tiers at the center of the building.

“His care is evident.” Lascelles bent over the nearest planter. “May I touch?”

“Of course.”

Since his adolescence Lascelles had been aware that his hands were one of his best features. They were large but slender and shapely, with long, pale fingers that could bend and gesticulate with great elegance. He flaunted his hands the way some men flaunted their wealth, and more than once he had watched the gaze of someone he wished to seduce fall upon his hands as his fingers traced the dip of a neckline or toyed with the edge of a glove. His hands seemed to have a hypnotic effect and he showed them to great advantage now, supporting the stem of the orchid with the index finger of his left hand while slowly, gently stroking the curve of each petal with the  
fingers of his right.

“Flowers are remarkable things, if you think about it,” he mused softly. “They possess such beauty and such power: inspiring poets to put their quills to paper, painters their brushes to canvas. They are the very language of love. And yet— such fragility. Too hard a touch, too brisk a wind, and they fall to pieces.”

Glancing at Maria he noticed her watching the delicate movement of his fingers, the way he spread them to touch multiple petals at once, and she seemed momentarily lost for words. “You are something of a poet yourself, Mr. Lascelles.”

He smiled. “I dare not claim such skill.” Leaning closer to the orchid he closed his eyes and inhaled its scent, then straightened to face her. “But I can be moved to express myself with, I suppose, some modicum of eloquence when faced with exceptional beauty.” He let his gaze linger on her face, making his meaning evident, and she blushed to the roots of her dark hair. “Do you care for poetry, Mrs. Bullworth?”

“Very much. I adore all of the finer arts, though Mr. Bullworth does not believe my tastes to be at all discriminating. I assure you, Mr. Lascelles, that it is not at all true. I cannot claim any expertise, but I— I know what I enjoy. I just— well, I do not get much of an opportunity here to indulge my interests. Or improve them.”

“If indeed they need improving,” Lascelles said, “which I very much doubt.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Lascelles.”

As they walked through the remainder of the hothouse, Lascelles talked of music: of the operas that were currently popular in the capital, of the songs played at every dance.

"You must have the opportunity to hear a great many musicians in London," Maria said as they departed the hothouse and started down a path between two columns of shade trees that bordered the park. Lascelles had just described the performance of a Viennese cellist he had heard perform at a recent party. "I envy you that."

"You are not in London frequently?"

"No." She sighed the word wistfully. "My husband prefers to stay here. He does not like to leave the estate. Even with his manager, whom he trusts implicitly, he prefers to maintain direct supervision over his affairs."

And over his wife, no doubt, Lascelles thought. I shall remedy that soon enough. Aloud he said: "That is a great pity. Though I cannot pretend that every party in London is a success. Many are an unmitigated bore. Your presence, however..." He hesitated and she turned to him in curiosity. “Your husband deprives London of a jewel that would set the dullest dinner sparkling.”

Maria averted her gaze shyly, but her smile glowed with pleasure. “Mr. Bullworth dislikes music. And dancing. And large gatherings. He says they are too hot and make him feel flustered. But, if I must be honest, I believe there is another reason — aside from his preference for staying home — that makes my husband hesitant to take me often to the city.”

“I can imagine too well what that is,” Lascelles said smoothly. “It is often the case that a man with an exceptionally handsome wife cannot bear to see the admiring glances of other men fall upon her. It is natural, of course, though it would be otherwise with me, I must say. I am shallow enough, Mrs. Bullworth, to enjoy displaying my treasures—"

“No, you misunderstand me, Mr. Lascelles! It is not jealousy. Mr. Bullworth is the least jealous man in the world!”

Lascelles doubted this very much. No man who would spend the kind of money Bullworth had laid out to acquire the sculpture of Persephone could be without jealousy. It was jealousy of what another man might possess, jealousy of another’s acquisitions, that drove such purchases: this Lascelles knew from experience. But he did not contradict her.

“No, you see, Mr. Lascelles, I have a weakness,” Maria continued. “I am not ashamed to confess it. I enjoy the finer things in life. Fine clothes, jewels—"

“That is no weakness, surely!”

“Perhaps. But I think my husband fears I would spend all his money if we went too frequently to London." Maria gave a quiet, bitter laugh. Glancing at Lascelles, a mischievous little smile appeared on her lips and she said: “Do you have any such weaknesses, Mr. Lascelles? Other than one for fine things? You do not seem to me like a man who would permit of weakness.”

“On the contrary, Mrs. Bullworth, I do indeed have a weakness. One that has proved quite incurable, one that has pestered me since boyhood.”

“What is it?”

Lascelles shook his head. “Oh, my dear madam, I dare not confess it. You will laugh.”

"I promise I will not!”

Lascelles smiled. "Sweets, Mrs. Bullworth."

“Sweets?" Maria’s lips curled sharply upward and a laugh, light and chiming like struck crystal, escaped her mouth.

“You promised!” Lascelles cried with mock indignation. “You promised you would not laugh at me, and you have. It is a wound to my pride, madam!” And laying one hand over his heart as if it were broken, he pretended to start angrily away.

“No, please!” Maria caught his arm, still laughing. “I am not laughing at you, indeed Mr. Lascelles! I think it is a charming weakness. One which I share, I fear.”

Lascelles gave her a sidelong glance, raising one eyebrow. “Do you indeed?"

“Oh yes. Dreadfully so. I used to sneak into the kitchen for spoonfuls of sugar. Nanny would scold me horribly if I were caught. I still do it, from time to time. When I need cheering. What of you? What sweets do you favor?”

"Sweets of all kinds: chocolates and lemon drops, marzipan and sugared almonds. In fact, I have in my pockets right now several of the most delicious little cherry-flavored candies - imported from Switzerland, if I remember right. Would you like one?"

Maria smiled brightly. "Yes, very much."

In a casual fashion, Lascelles reached into the pocket of his coat for one of the sweets, but in drawing it out something else tumbled to the grass. It was a piece of cream silk, folded into a neat square, and Lascelles hesitated just long enough before bending to retrieve it to ensure that Maria noticed it.

"Is that-- is that my glove?" she asked in wonderment.

Lascelles picked it up and straightened slowly, holding the glove in both hands and not meeting her eyes. "You have found me out. This is most embarrassing. I discovered it in the hall last evening, laying upon the floor. You must have dropped it."

This was, of course, a lie. The glove had been brought to him by Maria's maid, in exchange for five guineas.

"I missed it this morning," she said, staring. "I thought I had misplaced it somewhere." She reached for the garment but Lascelles took a step back.

"I should have given it to one of your servants last night, I admit," he said. "But I-- I confess, I rather liked holding on to it." Watching Maria closely, Lascelles lifted the square of silk to his face. He closed his eyes and sniffed it, then lay it gently against his lips. "It smells of the arm that wore it. Lilacs, I believe. Or-- something like that orchid we just saw. A rare and beautiful flower, hidden away behind a garden wall." He smiled at her. "I will, of course, return it to you. But I thought perhaps we could negotiate an exchange."

"An exchange?" Maria laughed. The color was high in her cheeks, embarrassment and pleasure mingling beneath her skin. "It is my glove, Mr. Lascelles! Why should I have to give anything for the return of my own property?"

"You are very careless of your own property, Mrs. Bullworth, to leave so lovely a glove laying about. And as I am the one who recovered it, it seems but common courtesy to offer a small reward for its retrieval."

Maria drew her bottom lip thoughtfully between her teeth, then smiled. "Very well. What would you ask of me?"

They stopped walking. An immense oak tree stood just behind Maria, the girth of its trunk hiding the view of the house. Lascelles reached forward and gently took her hand in his.

"Your permission," he said softly, "to kiss your hand."

Maria did not answer immediately. She let her hand rest against Lascelles's palm, let him move his thumb slowly back and forth across her knuckles. Glancing up from her hand to his eyes she swallowed, took a breath. "So little? Yes. You have my permission."

Lascelles moved a step closer to her. Lifting her hand he drew it to his mouth. His lips parted and he allowed his warm breath to fall against her skin before pressing his lips - soft, wet - to the back of her hand. He held it there for a long time, drawing out the kiss and feeling her tremble as the tip of his nose brushed against her.

When he lifted his face and looked at her he found her mouth open and her bosom rising and falling rapidly with her breath. "You sell your services very cheaply, Mr. Lascelles," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "Would you ask for nothing more?"

Lascelles was still holding her hand close to his face. He turned it gently until her wrist was facing up and he slid the fingers of his right hand over her throbbing pulse, the greenish-blue veins just visible beneath her smooth white skin. "May I bestow another kiss," he asked, "just here?"

It appeared to take some effort for her to speak. "You may."

So Lascelles laid his mouth against her wrist, parting his lips and sucking softly at the tender flesh. Maria gave a small gasp. He could feel the blood rushing beneath her skin, the drumming of her pulse, the warmth of her, the taste of the perfume she had dabbed there that morning. The thrill of pursuit filled him, flooding his groin with heat. He did not ask for permission the next time: he simply glanced up at her, saw the consent in her eyes, and moved further up her arm, pressing another kiss to the inside of her elbow. Now he stood very close to her and, his tall frame already stooping over her arm, it did not require much movement to lay his lips upon the end of her  
collarbone where it met the hollow of her throat.

"Oh! Mr. Lascelles!" she breathed, and she pressed her hands against his chest without in the least trying to push him away. Lascelles let the very tip of his tongue brush against her skin and he felt her tremble again, harder this time, a spasm passing beneath his mouth and extending all through her. She had backed up against the oak and was trapped between it and Lascelles's body; she turned her head to one side as if to object to his attentions, but this only gave him better access to her throat and he used it: sucking at the flexed muscle in her neck, at the soft spot beneath her earlobe, at the angle of her jaw.

"This-- this is wrong," she whispered and trembled again when Lascelles made a deep, rumbling sound against her throat. "You-- are very impertinent, Mr. Lascelles."

"And you are exquisite." He pulled away to glance into her eyes before lowering his head and pressing his mouth to the crest of one pale breast. A whine of pleasure escaped Maria's lips and one hand went instinctively to the back of Lascelles's head, fingers threading into his hair.

"I should-- I should tell to you leave this instant," she stuttered, her breath coming yet faster as Lascelles's nibbled at her cleavage, his every exhalation falling warm down the gap in her neckline. "How dare-- how dare you, to come into my house--"

"Your husband's house," Lascelles said suddenly, straightening to look at her. "Make no mistake, my dear Maria. Everything - this house, these grounds, his art, even you - he considers his possessions. But if I were your husband..." He reached up and stroked his long, slender fingers down her cheek, over her wet, parted lips. "I would give you everything I have. I would lay it all at your feet. I would pull down the very stars and string them upon a chain for you to lay about your beautiful throat. You are the most perfect woman I have ever beheld and if-- if you would but consent to run away with me, I would worship you... Every inch of you... I would cover you in silks and diamonds by day, and by night-- by night I would pay homage to your loveliness with my mouth and my hands and my body..."

Maria gasped, her eyes riveted on his, and Lascelles noted with satisfaction the way she had curled one hand to grasp the fabric of his coat, the way she sagged a little upon her feet, falling against him. He heard it again in his imagination, the sharp metallic click, the sliding of the lock in the door of the birdcage, and his lips curled in a smile as he pressed his mouth back against her throat and felt the hammering of her pulse, the hot blood rushing wildly through her vein.

"Come away with me," he whispered, raising his head to murmur against her ear, to pull the tip of her earlobe between his lips.

"I-- I cannot," she murmured into his hair, and she brought both hands up to grasp his face. "I-- I cannot--"

But rather than push him away, Maria pressed her mouth to his. Lascelles groaned with need and took her in his arms, leaning his weight against her and pinning her back against the oak, returning her kiss with a fervor that left them both panting. He could feel it - in the little sounds she made in her throat, in the desperate way she reciprocated the slide of his tongue against hers - that what little resistance she had to the idea was even then melting, crumbling away. All that was left wasthe facade of anger and thus he did not fight her when she broke the kiss, struggled free of his arms, and ran away down the path.

Leaning against the oak, Lascelles watched her go, admiring the curves of her body as she moved. He fished a cherry candy from his pocket and savored the taste of it on his tongue, highly satisfied by the progress of the morning and anticipating the pleasures yet to come.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When his seduction of Maria takes a particularly juicy turn, Lascelles has ample reason to feel triumphant about his scheme for revenge. But even in the midst of his exultation, he cannot escape his own past.

She was close to breaking. So very close.

As he sat across from her at supper, Lascelles could almost feel the heat radiating from her body, could almost smell it: the musk of her desire, thick in his nostrils. Maria could barely take her eyes - unusually bright, like someone in the midst of a fever - from his face; could not poke at her food with fork or knife, or sip her drink, lest she have to avert her gaze. She wore a permanent blush, diffusing over her cheeks and down her throat, settling over those deliciously round hills that rose and fell at an exceptionally rapid pace, and Lascelles amused himself by watching their dance, imagining how they would look - soon, so very soon - bare beneath his long, pale fingers, and how he would arrange those fingers against them, cupping and rolling, scissoring a thick nipple between them…

While Lascelles appraised his wife in the same way a collector eyes the virtues of a fine piece of art, Bullworth droned about sheep and land values and any other subject a dull man might find appealing. Maria had told him nothing of what had occurred during their walk, that much was evident: but then Lascelles had not expected her to. A bird, after all, does not inform its gaoler of attempts to free it. A woman aching to experience passion does not alert her doddering old husband to the wolf slavering at her bedroom door. Lascelles smirked inwardly at Bullworth’s obliviousness as he met Maria’s glance over her wineglass, as he watched a sheen of nervous perspiration begin to gather in the hollow between her bosoms. It was not until the final course that Bullworth even noticed his wife’s obvious distress.

“Shall we have a look at the pieces I brought from London after supper, sir?” Lascelles was asking, his gaze slipping easily from wife to husband. He had been tempted to draw his slender foot from his slipper and stretch it across the short space beneath the table, to run it up beneath Maria’s skirt - but he had abstained, not without some regret. He had almost expected her to do such a thing to him - she was gazing at him with such fire - but there was still just enough timidity or shyness or - God help her - morality in her to prevent such an action.

That would all have to be stripped away, along with her blue silk gown, her gloves, her stockings. The morality should be the first to go. Lascelles found it so very tedious.

“That’s a splendid idea, Mr Lascelles,” Bullworth agreed, downing the last of his wine. His face had gone a bit florid with the alcohol and the heat of the many candles. “You haven’t changed your mind then, I take it?”

“Oh, on the contrary,” Lascelles said, raising his glass to his lips. Bullworth was dabbing at a drop of wine he’d split on his waistcoat and Lascelles took the opportunity of being unobserved by the husband to glance at the wife and touch the very tip of his tongue to the rim of the wineglass. He could have sworn that Maria gave an involuntary shudder. “On the contrary, sir, my resolve is stronger than ever.”

Maria's fork dropped to the edge of her plate with a loud clatter. “My dear Maria!” Bullworth cried. “You have hardly touched your supper! Are you unwell?”

“I think— I may be a little unwell, yes.” Her voice was soft, breathier than her usual tone. “I believe I shall retire early. If you will excuse me.”

They stood as she pushed back her chair and got to her feet, now studiously avoiding both her husband’s and Lascelles’s eyes. “Yes of course, my dear. A good night’s rest is likely all you require.” Bullworth could barely end his sentence before Maria was out the door.

“This is unlike her,” he commented to Lascelles as they resumed their seats. “She has the strongest of constitutions. Did she take a chill on your walk through the park today, do you know? She kept to her room most of the afternoon after that.”

“She certainly did not seem cold when we were together, sir,” Lascelles answered, biting his tongue.

“A pity. Cook has made her favorite dessert tonight: Peach Clafoutis. Maria adores peaches, and these are the first of the season.”

As soon as dessert was finished the men retired to Bullworth’s study. Here was where he displayed his finest pieces of art: large canvas portraits of men in armor and ladies in billowing gowns; landscapes and Biblical scenes by English, French, and Dutch masters. There were a number sculptures and, among them - sitting in pride of place on a pedestal in front of the oriel window - Persephone, all smooth marble limbs and hair, glistening swells of hips and breasts and buttocks. While the servants brought in the small crates Lascelles has used to transport his paintings, Lascelles himself walked slowly around the room, seeming to scrutinize Bullworth's material treasures while all the time considering the one upstairs in her boudoir. Was she undressing now, silk sliding down her legs? Perhaps she was laying half-dressed in a heat of desire upon her bed, stroking her own flesh in lieu of his hands? He licked his lips as he considered his next move, the chess piece in his mind yielding readily to his fingers.

"These are very fine, Mr Lascelles," Bullworth said as he ran a meaty hand over a gilded frame, peered closely at the layers of brushwork overspreading the canvas. "These are very fine indeed."

"I'm glad you approve, sir. Nothing to match your own most excellent collection, certainly."

Bullworth glanced up and saw Lascelles admiring the sculpture. “I wonder that you don’t hate me for snatching that beauty out from under you.”

Lascelles worked a smile onto his face before turning to face him. “That would be most ungentlemanly. You won it fairly, and I congratulate you.”

Bullworth shook his head. “A pity that Maria does not appreciate it as we do.”

Lascelles regarded the sculpture again. Bullworth was so engrossed in examining the paintings that he risked it, stretching out his hand to run his long, supple fingers over the recumbent goddess's ample curves. “Perhaps she could not warm to the subject matter, sir. The young maiden, embodiment of spring, snatched away to live in forced matrimony with the ancient ruler of the dead.”

There was a silence behind him and Lascelles turned to find Bullworth deep in contemplation, one of the paintings balanced on his knee.

“I am not a fool, Mr Lascelles, though I’m sure you must think me so.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Oh it is too true. Everyone thinks it of me. For marrying so young and beautiful a woman: I, so long past my prime, an aging squire who lives a retired life in the country. What can I possibly offer her?” Bullworth gave a small shrug. “Perhaps I am a fool. But my intentions have been of the best, the most honorable. To give her a comfortable home, a place in the society of the county, and though that society might not be of the most fashionable or — dare I say -- lively, it is still a position worthy of respect. I believe that Maria knows and appreciates what I have done for her, that I have always had her interests in mind. And of love? Well, that is something that grows with  
time, does it not? Slow and steady wins the race, as they say.”

“Indeed, sir,” Lascelles replied, “no one would argue that you have not behaved toward that worthy woman with anything but the utmost propriety and respect.” Merely speaking the words almost made him choke with boredom.

“These are fine, Mr Lascelles,” Bullworth said again, turning his attention back to the paintings. “I am indebted to you for parting with them to me.”

“Well, sir, you cannot give me too much credit.” Lascelles wore his most charming smile. “I am not doing so from benevolence. I do intend you to pay well for them.”

Bullworth got a hearty laugh from this and assured Lascelles that he intended to do so. After a few more minutes of pacing the room, Lascelles feigned a yawn. It was only a little after nine, but he managed - with little real effort - to convince Bullworth that he felt the need to retire rather earlier than usual.

“I hope that I am not being an unpardonably dull guest by so doing, sir.”

“No indeed, Mr Lascelles, no indeed. You leave me in quite fine company. I shall sit in here for several hours examining these jewels - if that is agreeable to you?”

“Most agreeable,” Lascelles said. “I had an idea that you might enjoy doing so, sir. And thus I will leave you to it.”

Thus freed from the onerous duty of small talk with Bullworth, Lascelles made his way to the kitchens, following a footman along the maze of corridors at a discrete distance. The cook - for what else could she be, Lascelles thought, they all looked much the same - was just coming out the door, her day’s labors at an end, and she gave a startled jump to see her master’s gentleman visitor venturing below stairs.

“Heavens bless me, sir! Are you lost?”

“No indeed, madam, and please forgive my intrusion. I simply wished to extend my personal compliments to the cook for the excellence of this evening’s meal — particularly the dessert.” He gave a bashful smile. “Would you be able to tell me where I might find her?”

This little subterfuge had just the right effect. The wiry old woman blushed to the roots of her greying hair, and soon they were chatting as convivially as old friends about sauces and soufflés and the merits of various kinds of pastry. When he confessed his great weakness for ripe peaches, therefore — explaining how his appetite for them had been whetted, but not yet satisfied, by the superb clafoutis — she smiled at him as if he were an errant schoolboy sneaking into the kitchen for sweets. She went to the larder and fetched two large, uncut peaches, handing them over with an indulgent wink. “Just between us, sir,” she said in a stage whisper and Lascelles rewarded her with a kiss to her wrinkled hand.

In a few minutes more he was at the door of Maria’s bedchamber. The same bargain that had bought Maria's glove from her lady's maid had purchased the location of her room. It had long since ceased to surprise him, the ease with which loyalty and discretion could be sold for a few coins, but it still had the power to amuse him. That and the anticipation of stepping across the line dividing polite behavior from scandal and sin. Lascelles had always found it to be a faint line anyway.

Maria was seated at her dressing table, brushing out her dark curls, when Lascelles let himself quietly into the room. Catching sight of him in the mirror she gasped and jumped to her feet, her unbound hair falling over her shoulders, her hairbrush clutched in one pale hand like a weapon. Her other hand flew to the laces that held closed the translucent chiffon wrap she wore over her nightgown, and Lascelles had to suppress the jolt of excitement this instinctive act of modesty sent to his groin.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “You must leave at once! Do you wish me to call for my husband?”

“He would not thank you for it,” Lascelles said, leaning placidly back against the door. His hands were clutched behind him and he slowly unhooked the fingers of his right hand to reach back and slide the door's bolt into place. “He is very much engaged at present: admiring the paintings I am selling to him. He is utterly enraptured. Gazing lovingly at each brushstroke. Caressing each frame.”

“Then I shall ring for a servant!” She went to the bell pull beside the hearth and raised her hand as if to grasp it. “One will be here in an instant and I shall have you thrown from this house, out upon your ear!”

Lascelles shook his head. “There is no need to go to such an effort, madam. If you desire my departure from this house, you need only tell me to go.” He paused, watching her delicate hand hang in the air beneath the cord. The firelight and the few candles lit around the room fell in soft waves over the cascade of her hair and the gauzy fabric of her wrap. There was no need for Lascelles to feign admiration: she was a vision. “Is that really what you want, my dear Maria? Do you wish to be rid of me so soon?”

She hesitated, then sighed and let her hand fall to her side. Her eyes were particularly bright in the candlelight: glinting, sharp, luminous with high emotion. She laid her hairbrush down on the dressing table and clutched at the laces of her wrap with both hands. “Why have you come here? What do you want?”

“So many things,” Lascelles murmured, letting his gaze move slowly, obviously, up and down her form. “But at this particular moment? Something to take to my bed.”

A soft gasp escaped Maria’s lips and she took a step backwards, but Lascelles walked away from her, turning his steps towards the large canopy bed. Her evening gown lay upon the coverlet in a heap of shimmering blue silk, various other garments discarded around it. “I was obliged to return your glove this afternoon, if you recall. So I am in need of something else, something equally soft and smooth to keep in my hand, to brush against my lips. Something that holds the beguiling aroma of its owner.” Glancing from time to time at Maria he shifted the garments about, flicking the various fabrics lazily with his long fingers, pausing when he came across a white stocking.  
Smiling, Lascelles lifted it slowly and ran it like a stream of water across his left palm, then pulled it taut between both hands and put it to his face. He brushed the silk slowly across his lips as Maria watched, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep, prolonged inhalation.

“Mmmm. Is that perfume? Or is that simply the smell of your skin?” He drew the stocking through splayed fingers, grasping the band of embroidered fabric at the end that had, not so long before, encircled her thigh. “Mmmm, yes. It is you, I believe. Your natural scent… The sweetness of your thighs. Intoxicating. I should like to know for certain, however.” Glancing up and holding Maria’s gaze, Lascelles took the fabric between his lips, sucking on it slightly. A visible tremor ran through her body. “Shall I make certain of it?” he asked softly, turning now to walk towards her. “Shall I bury my head between your thighs?”

Her breath left her mouth with a whimper. She endeavored to evade him, but found herself trapped between his body and the dressing table. “How can you say such things? Why do you wish to torment me?”

“Torment you? Oh my darling Maria, I wish to worship you. Adore you. To touch you, feel the warmth of your skin against my lips. To fall at your feet and make of myself a pedestal to hold you up and honor you, to give you everything you deserve and desire.”

Maria’s eyelids fluttered and she slumped back against the table. “Your words— If only I thought I could believe them—“

“Shall I prove it to you?” Lascelles watched the tightening of the muscles in her throat as he drew up against her, watched her swallow as he lifted his hand and stroked his fingers down her cheek. “Shall I prove my devotion?”

“Stop,” she murmured, but as she opened her mouth to speak he ran his thumb over her parted lips and she took the very tip between them, giving his skin the softest suckle. He was tempted to dive deeper, to thrust into her mouth, to feel its warm wetness enveloping him. But instead Lascelles moved his hand to her chin and, tilting it up, brought his mouth to hers, kissing her softly at first but with increasing thirst and pressure. Maria made no effort to resist. Her breath was heavy as he drew away, burying his face in the thick curls at her neck, murmuring against her skin.

“Maria. Oh— Maria. You must feel it, you must understand— What you’ve done to me, how you’ve made me wild— Desperate—“

“What I have done to you?” she stammered, one hand coming up to the back of his head, fingertips easing into his hair. “What— what have you done to me? Such thoughts— I have never dared to allow myself…”

Lascelles drew back suddenly. He kept her gaze locked with his while he moved one hand to the ties of her wrap. Slowly he wound the end of one of the silken ribbons around his index finger, wrapping it around and around, drawing it tighter with each pass, then giving it a firm tug. The knot that secured the ribbons dissolved, the wrap fell asunder, and Lascelles lowered his gaze with deliberate slowness, letting it feast on her cleavage, well exposed by the plunging neckline of her nightgown. His fingertips followed his gaze, tracing the line of lace at the edge of the neckline, brushing both cloth and flesh. Maria’s breath caught in her throat.

“My maid,” she murmured. “She comes— comes every night at ten to help me ready for bed—“

Lascelles glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, sedately ticking out the minutes of the hour. It was 9:25. It had not been a warning, he realized. It was an invitation.

“It was a pity that you excused yourself before dessert was served,” he said, withdrawing his hand from the swell of her breasts. “Your husband told me how fond you are of peaches.” Lascelles brought one of the ripe fruit from his coat pocket and passed it a few inches from Maria’s lips. “They are favorites of mine as well.” He held the peach to his own lips, inhaled its scent, rubbed it against his cheek to feel the softness of its skin. “I love the way they nestle in my hand. The tenderness of them. The sweetness of their flavor. How they yield to my mouth.” He took a bite, not bothering to keep the juice from spilling over his lip and dribbling down his chin. Maria’s tongue flicked out as she watched him and Lascelles brought the exposed flesh to her mouth. She opened her lips to taste it but Lascelles moved it suddenly away, down to the neckline of her gown, squeezing the fruit hard in his fist so that peach juice dripped down upon the hills of her breasts and trickled into the valley between them. Maria gasped as Lascelles took her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, laying her down in the midst of the scattered clothes.

He wasted no time, but tugged at the neck of her gown until one breast broke free. Despite all his cunning, his artifice, a fire of genuine lust began to lick at his core. It was full and round and creamy, her nipple a dark, dusky red, hard as a pebble already. He dragged the flesh of the peach over her breast, concentrating on the nipple, then down into the hollow between that breast and the one still clothed, until Maria’s skin glistened with the juice.

“So plump,” he murmured, cupping her bare breast in his left hand in the same way he grasped the peach in his right. “So soft. So wonderfully soft and sweet.” And he put his mouth, open and sucking, to her breast: licking the curve of it, slurping at the juice, dragging his tongue roughly over the puckered circle of her areola. Maria whimpered weakly, thrashing beneath him, torn between desire to escape the torment of his mouth and an aching need to deepen it. Lascelles tugged at her nipple with his lips, his front teeth closing gently around it, then suckling hard with the whole of his mouth. She arched her back sharply and her hands scrabbled for purchase among  
the bedclothes, clawing and gripping.

“Henry! Oh— Henry!”

Lascelles’ own control faltered just enough to let a choked moan of desire escape his lips as he followed the trail of peach juice down into the hollow between her breasts. At the same time he brought his right hand down between their bodies and moved it up beneath the skirt of Maria’s gown, brushing the leaking fruit up her legs, along the inside of her thighs.

“So much sweetness,” he whispered, and he slid down her body, tossing the peach to the floor, pushing up her skirt and following the trail of juice with his open, thirsting mouth. His tongue quested along the tender flesh of her thighs and the higher he moved, the more breathless Maria became, the more desperate the moans and whimpering, pleading noises she made. Lascelles took his time, pausing to swirl his tongue in tight little circles, smiling as he felt Maria shudder and convulse as the top of his head brushed against her womanhood. He was tempted to go all the way, tempted to take her with his mouth - for she was indeed very soft, very sweet - but bringing  
her to pleasure so soon was not part of his strategy. So her merely let his breath ghost over her, bringing himself back up abruptly to capture her mouth.

“Henry,” she sobbed against his lips, her hips bucking instinctively beneath him. “You are torturing me.”

“But what a delicious torture, yes?” he murmured, nibbling at her bottom lip, moving his mouth to lick at the line of her throat. “The kind that should never end.” One hand was still on her bare thigh and he slid it up until the tips of two slender fingers cleaved her, and Maria cried out sharply, pushing herself down against his touch. Lascelles slid his fingers between her folds, biting down a smile at the slick thickness of her arousal. “What luscious fruit you are,” he whispered, pushing his tongue between her lips just as he edged his fingertips inside her, feeling her clench with eager anticipation. “As wet as that peach. As sweet—“

“Henry, please—“ Maria gripped his back with both hands, balling the fabric of his coat in her fists, her voice strained and breathless. “Please—“

Lascelles brought his fingers to the tender nub at the head of her folds, drawing a high-pitched whine from Maria as he applied the gentlest pressure and employed all the nimbleness of his digits to caress it in tight, slow circles. He felt the pulse in Maria’s throat accelerate, felt every muscle in her body tense, felt the breath catch in her lungs; her eyelids fluttered over irises bright with heat, pupils dilated with arousal. He was quite certain she had never been touched in this way, in this place -- at least not by a hand other than her own -- and he marveled at old Bullworth’s stupidity. He might have thanked God for it if he had believed in any divinity greater than himself. Maria was swollen beneath his touch, so full of need and heat, so close to the point of breaking. He eased his hand away, brought it up from out of her skirt, and as she watched he pushed those long, probing fingers into his mouth and sucked upon them, groaning as he savored the taste of peach juice and female desire mingled on his skin.

“Henry! I need—“ Maria thrust up against him, begging with her body, and he made to return his hand to the warmth between her thighs. But she was so close — so very close… He could not allow the game to end so soon. “I need you!” she whimpered and Lascelles pressed a kiss to her mouth, then abruptly rolled away.

“I— I cannot! I cannot— do this!” He made his voice break mid-sentence as he sat up on the edge of the bed, letting his head fall forward to be cradled in his hands. “You are too perfect. I cannot sully something so perfect. I am not good enough for you.”

Maria had followed him up, one hand trailing up his curved back, and she wrapped her arms suddenly around him, pressing one kiss after another to the side of his face, the shell of his ear. “How can you say so? How can you think so?” She brushed the hair at his temple with her fingertips, nuzzled her face against him. “I have never— I have never known a man like you. So cultured, so charming. And the things you say…” She stroked his cheek, her breath falling hot and moist over his skin. “You are everything that I always dreamed of finding, but then I despaired—“

She could not commit herself yet; Lascelles sensed it. He caught her hand in his and brought it to his mouth, brushing his lips across her palm, giving her another chance. “But you are married...”

Maria was silent for a moment. “Yes.” She hesitated, words on the verge of spilling out held still in check. “My husband is a good man,” she continued at length, her voice very quiet. “But Henry — I ache for you.”

She drew his hand to her and laid it on her bare breast. There was no artifice in the way Lascelles' breath caught in his mouth, the way his erection throbbed painfully against the placket of his breeches. Her nipple was so hard against his palm, so deliciously hard and distended, and he could feel it still against his tongue, thick and solid, and he salivated to think of biting it again, treading that thrilling line between pleasure and cruelty. But he simply caressed her, letting her draw him into a bruising kiss before pulling away again and standing.

“It is nearing ten,” he murmured, a sizzle of delight rolling up his spine at the little mewl of frustration she made. “I must go. I would not hurt you for all the world, would not risk your happiness—“

“You make me happy,” she said fiercely, her eyes blazing as she gazed up at him. With her lips swollen and red, her breast hanging bare and glistening with saliva and peach juice, her skirt still pushed up about her thighs, her hair disheveled from his raking fingers, Maria looked well used, a far different woman from the proper, impeccably neat lady of the house he had met in the courtyard just the morning before. Lascelles smiled. He was almost as aroused by pride in his own handiwork as he was by her willingness.

“I must go. Consider, my darling, if your maid should come early, if your husband should tire of his paintings and wish for a far more beautiful work of art—“

“That is unlikely,” she said, and there was just the hint of bitterness in her tone. Good, Lascelles thought: very good.

“He would have me cast out onto the road. Or have me walk to stand a dozen paces away, in the sights of his pistol.”

“He wouldn’t dare!” Maria cried. “He should have to shoot through me first.”

”My darling.” Lascelles stroked his fingers along the line of her jaw, ran his thumb over her bottom lip. She opened her mouth again and touched it with the tip of her tongue. “I will not push you. Let us take the night — let us consider. And in the morning, if you feel the same—“

“I will.” She said it fiercely, clinging to his hand. “I know that I will."

"Perhaps."

Checking first to make sure that the hallway was deserted, Lascelles slipped quietly from the room and down the corridor, shedding his coat and holding it before him in case he encountered any servants on the way to his room. Despite the ache of his arousal, he could not help but smile: had he not wished to move as silently as possible, he might have been tempted to whistle there between the tall, echoing walls. Was the ease of it all due to her vulnerability and loneliness, her husband’s obliviousness, he wondered? Or was he simply that irresistible to the weaker sex? Even Lascelles was not so impolitic as to give all credit to the latter explanation. But neither was he so  
modest as to think it played no part in the speed of his triumph. 

He had just turned down the corridor where his room was located when he saw it. Every wall in Bullworth's manor was liberally adorned with works of art of some kind - paintings, etchings, small sculpted pieces, antique swords even - though his most valuable acquisitions were housed in the study Lascelles had visited earlier in the evening. This little painting - no more than a foot wide and a couple of feet in height - was obviously not a great favorite of its owner, having been placed in such an unimpressive place. It was a still life, and in the poorly lit corridor it would have been hard for anyone else to have described exactly what it depicted. But Lascelles knew. He knew instantly. He had been present at its creation, watched the progress of each brushstroke that slowly brought the shapes and colors of the objects being depicted into being. 

His table, that sat that very night in his library in London. His blue-patterned Chinese vase, his glass bowl. His pomegranates, purchased with his money, cut open with his knife, spilling wet seeds over the lip of the bowl and down onto his silken tablecloth. His things, depicted in a painting in a little gold frame, hanging forgotten on Bullworth's wall.

His memories. His sorrow.

In a rush he remembered it, how he and his first lover, the painter of that picture, had taken those pomegranates to his bed once the likenesses of the fruit had been set in paint. How he had scooped out those seeds with his slender fingers, fed them to his lover; how some had spilled down over his lover's chest, tangled in the thick black hair that grew there, and how he had sought out each one with his lips and tongue. How they had laughed over the fruit's reputation as an aphrodisiac, its mythic resonance; how his lover had claimed to be Hades and called Lascelles by the name of Persephone as he'd stroked his bright hair, joking about how he would carry him down, down into darkness. They had lapped at the juice on each other's bodies, made love, and whether the sweetness of the act that night was sharpened by the fruit or only by their mutual hunger, Lascelles did not know. It was a long time ago now, though he could still feel the aftermath of it, the abandonment, like a hard stone grinding away in his breast.

He stumbled into his room and closed the door. A servant had stoked the fire but there was little other light, for no candles had been lit, and Lascelles kept it that way, leaning back against the door, cold in the shadows, yet with fire still burning in his core. And another fire raging beneath his temples, pounding, throbbing: sheer rage, stabbing into both sides of his skull like stilettos. He dropped his coat on the floor, his hands scrabbled at the placket of his breeches, his erection hard and hot against his fingers.

His memories, his pain, a piece of his lover, hanging on Bullworth's wall. His Persephone, his coveted treasure, sitting on a plinth in Bullworth's study. What right did he have, this dull man, to possess these pieces of his life, his being? Lascelles could see the painting perfectly in his mind, the round fullness of the pomegranates, the light glistening off the sheen of the spilled seeds, the red vivid as blood, the blue and white of the Chinese vase like the ocean chopped with foamy waves. He could see each stroke of the brush, the precision of his lover's steady hand, the laughing light of his eyes, and he worked himself hard and fast, panting, biting down on his bottom lip until the metallic tang of blood touched his tongue. Those pomegranates, the sparkling glass of that bowl, the liquid shimmer of the tablecloth: he stroked them all in his imagination as he stroked himself, stroked his lover, felt them under his hands until he could taste them, and then he spilled over his fingers, his whole body trembling as he slid to the floor.

Who was the bird in the cage, and who was the gaoler? As he breathed through the spasms of anger and pleasure that flooded through him, Lascelles was quite certain of one thing. He was the cat, pacing silently on the periphery, scarred and beaten but still agile, flexing his claws and ready to pounce.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Employing a familiar co-conspirator in a plot to get some time alone with Maria, Lascelles aims to consummate his act of revenge.

Damaged goods. Lascelles had always liked that phrase. Not when applied to anything he possessed: heaven forbid. But then he was always so scrupulous about his purchases. No, it was when the phrase was used in conjunction with people that he found it so fitting. The wives of earls and the younger daughters of Parliamentarians. Newly betrothed country ladies at the end of their first seasons in London; chambermaids in respectable houses. Henry Lascelles, a man who would tolerate no snag or discolored thread in anything he draped upon his elegant frame, no scratch or scuff on the surface of any object he placed in his house in Bruton-street: he was a man who had made the damaging of other goods into something of an art form. It was one of the talents he was most proud of, and he hoarded up the memories of his accomplishments for dull hours or those few times when he was plagued by a problem that could not be dismissed simply by the application of money or threat. In such moments he would entertain himself by imagining a parade of his damaged goods: a line of silk and chiffon passing in front of Bruton-street, perfumed but slightly ripe, rouged and powdered but now looking somewhat the worse for wear. The vision never failed to make him smile.

Maria Bullworth was damaged goods already, in a way. It was true he hadn't taken her yet, hadn't consummated his revenge in the fullest meaning of that term. But as he made his way downstairs the next morning, Lascelles found some temporary balm to the rawness of his anger in considering that -- no matter what happened next -- Bullworth's bride was already lost to him. Maria had tasted a fruit exotic to her sheltered lips and old Bullworth -- with his fat hands and sweaty jowls -- could never now garner anything more in her breast than a pang of disgust. Lascelles could depart that morning, feigning urgent business, and be satisfied in the knowledge that he left in his wake the wreck of a marriage: where before there had at least been the patient endurance of the wife to her lot, there would now be daily evidence of her unhappiness, if not open rebellion. 

But it wasn't enough. It might have been, even the day before. Even the evening before as he had fondled her plump breasts and licked peach juice from her thighs, Lascelles might still have walked away without doing more, content in the damage he had already accomplished. But then he had seen the painting on Bullworth's wall: the pomegranates, spilling their glistening seeds across the dark canvas, spilling bitter memories out of Lascelles's heart -- and if he had been another kind of man, a lesser kind, a brute who used his fists to hurt rather than his wealth and the clever turn of his mind: if he had been that kind of man he would have taken a brand and set fire to his bed curtains and razed Bullworth's manor to the ground. It didn't matter that Bullworth knew nothing of the secret history of that painting: the hot embraces, the tangle of flesh, the words whispered in Italian. His ignorance was no excuse for the display of Lascelles's pain upon his wall.

So it was with a renewed sense of purpose that Lascelles went to breakfast that morning, his last morning in Northamptonshire. The sun was bright in the windows as he made his way to the breakfast room and, glancing out, he saw a blue sky and not a hint of cloud. It was the day of the scheduled trip into the village to see the artwork Bullworth had loaned to the local museum, and it seemed that nature had deigned to acquiesce to all Lascelles's plans. As was only right and proper, after all. Whether everything happened as he had imagined, however, depended in large part on a participant far more capricious than the English weather.

He'd sent the letter into the village the morning before, and that should have allowed his accomplice ample time to construct a character. There was a great deal of the theatrical in Drawlight, and a natural talent for the absurdities inherent in playacting. Yet Lascelles still had reason to worry.

"If you fail me, Christopher," he thought to himself, "I'll have your balls gilded and strung up in Bruton-street for Yuletide decorations."

When Lascelles entered the breakfast room, however, he had a different cause for alarm. Bullworth sat alone at the table, reading the Times and munching ponderously on a piece of toast.

"Dear Maria is still unwell," Bullworth confided immediately in lieu of a good morning. "I am becoming most concerned. I wonder if we should put off our plan to visit the village, Mr Lascelles. It would just be the two of us, after all, and I do not like the thought of leaving when she is poorly."

Perhaps he had overplayed his hand. Lascelles toyed with a napkin, staring without appetite at the dishes on the sideboard. If this was her ploy -- to feign sickness and stay in her room to avoid him until his departure the following day -- he was unsure how he could counter it, short of bursting into her chamber and throwing her over his shoulder like some Viking heathen of old. That was as undesirable as it was ludicrous. He wanted Maria to come to him of her own volition. Bullworth could only be properly crushed in spirit if the choice to abandon him was Maria's own.

"What is the nature of her affliction, exactly?" Lascelles asked, helping himself to eggs, tomatoes, toast and marmalade.

"When I checked on her last evening -- it was very late, I am sorry to own, I spent too long in the study with your artwork and I'm afraid when I finally went upstairs I may have woken her -- she said that she felt overheated, feverish. Like she was burning up from the inside, she said." Bullworth shook his grizzled head. “Yet her maid checked and she has no fever. It is very odd."

Lascelles wiped his mouth with the napkin to cover his smile. "It sounds like a simple case of overstimulation, sir."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The summer heat, sir, the changes in weather, the rich dinners we have been treated to. My presence, even. You live a quiet, retired life here ordinarily. The presence of even a single stranger may have proved a bit overtaxing for her. I'm sure she will soon be recovered."

"Oh! Yes, quite. Yes, perhaps that is it. I had not thought of it. We shall give it until after our meal and then make our decision about whether or not to go. But I cannot have you calling yourself a stranger, Mr. Lascelles. No indeed. This is your third day with us here at Apple Hill. You must consider yourself now, as I do, our friend."

The smile Lascelles bestowed on Bullworth at that moment might have been described by artists as beatific. Loathing rolled in waves beneath like riptides under a sunny sky.

"Your kindness is all the more reason I hesitate to bring up the issue of our business..."

"Speak freely, please. Are you having second thoughts about selling the paintings?" Bullworth asked. "I would be disappointed, of course, but I cannot say I would blame you. I would find it very hard myself to part with such beauties."

Lascelles gave no reaction to this irony but savored it secretly, like a bonbon snuck between courses at the supper table. "No indeed, sir, no second thoughts. It is only that I have some concerns about traveling with a sum of money as large as you have so graciously offered. I thought, perhaps, that you might be so good as to give me a draft for the amount today and I could deposit it in the village -- that is, if we do decide to make the journey. Then I may have my bank in London draw upon the amount once I am home. It would relieve me from any fears of robbery upon the road. I may be overly cautious, sir, but -- times being what they are. War and desperation--"

"I think it a capital idea, and very wise!" Bullworth cried, and he rose immediately and went to his study to write out the draft.

Lascelles joined him there in due course and the next hour passed in conversation: convivial from Bullworth's perspective, tedious from Lascelles's. The hour of the journey had been set for eleven and as the minutes ticked past, the hand making its slow revolution on an old Swiss clock on the mantlepiece, Lascelles began to despair of all his carefully crafted stratagems. It was a feeling that was as alien to him as it was unpleasant to experience. But at a quarter until the hour, the door opened gently and Maria entered the room.

She certainly looked no worse for her "illness." Her dark curls were pulled back, but tendrils had been left loose to frame her apple cheeks, which she'd warmed with a hint of rouge or the nip of her fingers. Her blue eyes shone uncommonly bright, almost like one with a fever, but her skin was without blemish, free of the unpleasant dew of illness. Most promising to Lascelles's eyes was that she was dressed all in red: scarlet spencer over a deep rose promenade gown. This was not the attire of a woman intent on resisting temptation. A tingle of excitement shot up Lascelles’s rigid spine and he gave her a small, secretive smile. Maria caught but did not acknowledge it, glancing  
briefly at him before turning to her husband who had lumbered to his feet and was crossing the room to greet her.

"My dearest! It makes me most happy to see you out of your room! Are you recovered?"

"I believe so."

"Mr. Lascelles and I were uncertain whether to attempt our journey to the village. We were certainly disinclined to go while you were unwell, but perhaps you are still too fatigued to undertake such an outing?"

"No, indeed, I am quite myself again. And I think the fresh air and change of scene might do me good." She paused and turned her liquid eyes upon Lascelles, a guarded sort of look. "Unless Mr. Lascelles has lost interest in the plan?"

"No, Mrs. Bullworth, " Lascelles answered, giving a pretty little bow. "I assure you, I am quite as eager as ever."

"Well, that's settled then!" Bullworth cried jovially, not noticing how his wife's gaze remained fixed upon their houseguest. "I shall ring for the carriage at once!"

As Bullworth conferred at the door with his butler, Lascelles and Maria continued to stare at one another. Lascelles took a single step closer to her, watching an almost imperceptible tremor race over her skin even though he was still almost the full length of the room away. "I am greatly relieved to see you well, Mrs. Bullworth," he said in a low voice, risking a small, cunning smile while Bullworth's attention was engaged. "May I say, your illness has in no way affected your beauty."

"You are most kind, Mr. Lascelles." Her lips parted and it seemed as if she would say something more, but Bullworth turned back to them at that moment and she averted her gaze, looking again at her husband. The little cringe of discomfort that passed over her face when Bullworth put his arm around her was not, Lascelles trusted, a mere figment of his imagination.

"What a merry party we shall make, now that Maria is recovered," Bullworth said, a stupid smile pulling at his jowls. "But my dear, you must not allow us to fatigue you, and if you begin to feel unwell you must say so and we shall return posthaste. And you should take a coat along with you, and something for your head, for the weather could change and I should not want you to catch a chill in your present state--"

"Am I child, to need to be told these things?" Maria snapped brusquely, and Bullworth pulled back a little as if he had been struck. It was the first time Lascelles had heard Maria speak in such a tone and, judging from the pained expression on Bullworth's face and the redness of Maria's cheeks, perhaps the first time she ever had. She shook her head and put her arm through her husband's, giving him a gentle squeeze. "Forgive me, dearest, but I promise you, I am quite well now. I need take no extra precautions."

"It is well, sir, that we are able to make the journey today," Lascelles put in, hoping to divert from the unpleasantness lest Bullworth decide to call the whole excursion off. "You know I am leaving tomorrow, and I would hated to have missed seeing your other prized artworks."

Both Maria and her husband turned to Lascelles in surprise. "Tomorrow?" Maria said, her eyes wide. "So very soon?"

"You grieve us, Mr. Lascelles. We had counted upon you staying at least until the end of the week," Bullworth added.

"That is very kind of you, but I do not wish to wear out my welcome. Loathe as I am to take my leave of you both, I can neglect my business in London no longer. I hope you understand."

Bullworth muttered some claptrap about how sorry they would be to see him go, of how business interests oft interfered with the pleasures of company, but Lascelles heard little of it. He was watching Maria, taking note of the sharp look of anxiety in her eyes, the way she bit at her bottom lip as if seized by an unexpected worry. At that moment a knock at the door interrupted their various preoccupations and Bullworth's butler, Merriwether, opened the library door and bowed.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but there is a gentleman here who wishes to speak to you immediately."

Lascelles glanced again at the clock: 10:50. The age of miracles, it seemed, was not at an end after all.

"Impossible," Bullworth grunted in response to Merriwether. "We are just leaving, as you well know. I have no time to spare. Tell this gentleman to leave his card and I shall send him an invitation to call upon me at another time."

Merriwether cleared his throat. "With all due respect, sir, I told him that you were, at this very moment, about to leave for the day, but he insisted that I implore you to admit him. He said that what he wishes to discuss with you can brook no delay, that it is a matter of some delicacy regarding--" And here Merriwether glanced at Lascelles and dropped his voice to a softer volume in the discrete manner of all good manservants. "Regarding Mr. Carver, sir."

This captured Bullworth's attention, as Lascelles had known it would. He understood that the one thing that motivated all men -- more than greed, more than lust, more even than revenge -- was the desire to protect and preserve what was already theirs. Money and possessions, rank and privileges, land and women. This whole act of seduction was predicated on the consciousness of the pain losing Maria would cause Bullworth, and so too was this particular ploy that Lascelles had conceived of as a way to ensure that he could spend some time with Maria alone. During the first evening's dinner, Bullworth -- a touch too deep in his cups, perhaps -- had expressed concern  
about the manager of his estate, a middle-aged man named Carver. Carver had recently lost his wife and Bullworth -- though as yet without evidence -- worried that, in his grief, Carver might have taken to drink. Perhaps the man had a history of imbibing to excess: Lascelles didn't know, and the discrete inquiries he had made among the staff had given him to believe that Carver was a competent, unremarkable, and thoroughly upstanding man. But blackening the reputation of an innocent bystander was nothing that could give Lascelles the least pause, and so he had sent all the pertinent information he could gather about the unfortunate Mr. Carver to his co-conspirator,  
bidding him to make good use of Bullworth's paranoia.

"About Carver, you say." Bullworth stroked his chin with a meaty hand. "And this gentleman, is he known to me? Someone from the local area?"

"No, sir, he is a traveler and has only recently been staying in the village. A Mr. Hartacre, sir."

"A mister what?" Bullworth asked.

"Hartacre, sir."

Lascelles turned towards the window, closed his eyes tightly, and stifled a groan. He had never been one for mounting trophy heads upon his walls, but if Drawlight ruined everything with ridiculous names and an outlandish performance, he would have a long-lashed, dark-haired foppish specimen hanging in Bruton-street by week's end.

Maria had obviously noted her husband's concern and had placed a gentle hand upon his arm. "Perhaps you had best meet with this man, my dearest," she told him. "I know how concerned you have been about Mr. Carver, and considering his responsibilities here--" She shook her head. "If we must forgo our trip to the village, it is of no consequence. I am sure we can find something here to entertain Mr. Lascelles."

"On the contrary, sir, might I make a suggestion that would serve all of our interests?" Lascelles turned back from the window and stepped forward. "Allow me to escort Mrs. Bullworth to the village while you meet with this man. I am sure that your wife, after her illness, could benefit from the fresh air. I am all eagerness to see the artwork you have loaned out. And you may conduct your business with Mr... Hartacre without feeling pressed for time or obligated to entertain me. And sir, if I may be so bold --" Lascelles lowered his voice to a confidential whisper as he continued. "I would take no chances where the reputation of my manager were concerned. Consider how the good management of your estate rests upon the judgement and discretion of this man. Consider too that this Hartacre is traveling and may not have an opportunity of calling upon you again. Can you afford not to find out what he has come so urgently to tell you? Please, sir. For your sake and the sake of your wife, I would not have you refuse this man on my account."

Bullworth chewed at his fat bottom lip thoughtfully, turning again to Maria. "I do not like to disappoint you, my dear--"

"You do no such thing," she answered, smiling sweetly. "I shall be quite well in Mr. Lascelles's company, and we shall be home again before supper. Have no fear on that score." Quite unconsciously, she took her hand from her husband's arm and laid it on Lascelles's. The symbolism pleased him immensely.

"Very well," Bullworth said, and looking at Lascelles he added: "I charge you with taking good care of her."

"I shall consider it my solemn duty, sir."

"I will fetch my reticule and meet you at the carriage," Maria said, glancing at Lascelles, then moving to bid her husband goodbye. When he leaned in to kiss her, she turned her cheek, offering him the barest slice of cheekbone before bustling out of the library without a backward glance.

Bullworth nodded to Merriwether who waited patiently beside the door. "Show Mr-- eh, Mr. Hartacre-- in now, will you Merriwether?"

"Very good, sir."

Lascelles braced himself, and it was a good thing too. For when Christopher Drawlight -- in the guise of Hartacre - came through the library door, it was clear that his enthusiasm for playacting did not extend to any alteration of his wardrobe. Lascelles could not recall ever having seen a country gentlemen who dressed as if to outdo Beau Brummell in finery, but here was Drawlight, sidling into the room in satins and velvets and a dash of powder, lorgnette in hand. Lascelles fully expected Bullworth to display immediate suspicion, but whatever he thought of the strange Mr. Hartacre it was apparently insignificant compared to his worries about Carver, and he turned without hesitation to greet his guest.

"My dear Mr. Bullworth!" Drawlight cried, wringing him effusively by the hand. "How good it is of you -- how generous with your time! -- to admit me upon such short notice! I would not have presumed to impose upon you, my good sir, had I not felt that what I had to impart was of the utmost consequence to you -- indeed, to your imminently respectable estate itself!"

"I am obliged to you, Mr. Hartacre, for your concern."

Lascelles moved toward the door then, giving a nod to Bullworth. "I will show myself out. I do not wish to intrude upon your conversation."

"Thank you, Mr. Lascelles. Mr. Hartacre, may I present Mr. Henry Lascelles. Mr. Lascelles is up from London and is just about to escort my wife into the village to tour the local museum."

"Indeed!" Drawlight's eyes twinkled dangerously as he took Lascelles's hand. "How nice it is to make your acquaintance, Mr. Lessells." The mispronunciation was intentional and Lascelles, whose back was turned to Bullworth, gave Drawlight a glare that would have chilled the blood of a less oblivious man. "What a conscientious gentleman indeed, to attend the lady of the house with such selfless devotion."

Lascelles curled his upper lip in a warning snarl, then turned back toward Bullworth and bowed. "Until this evening, then," he said, and managed his escape from the library before his presence encouraged Drawlight to further rhetorical mischief.

The carriage was parked in the gravel drive before the front steps, a pair of fine chestnut mares in harness, stamping their hooves and snorting in the warm, late morning sun. The footman held the door for Lascelles and he climbed inside, taking the forward-facing seat across from Maria. The curtains were still pulled across both carriage windows and Lascelles stopped the footman before he could open them. "The lady has been unwell and the sunlight might prove too bright for her. Leave these closed and, if she feels inclined, I will open them later."

"Very good, sir," the footman replied, and closed the door.

With a forward jolt the carriage set out and Lascelles settled into the cushions of his seat, returning Maria's silent stare. She sat rigidly upright, gloved hands folded demurely in her lap, a dark blue sunbonnet tied with a rose-colored ribbon completing her ensemble, and Lascelles found his eyes falling to trace the line of the ribbon as it cascaded from her chin to undulate over her breast. She looked like the summer morning personified: creamy cheeks soft and fresh with youth and vigor, pink lips pressed together and glistening with moisture from the tip of her tongue, dark blue eyes glimmering in the shade of her hat brim. For a moment he felt something akin to nervousness, fixed as he was by the steadiness of her gaze, but soon enough he thought of Bullworth and then thwarted pride kindled rage again in his heart, and he was himself: confident, remorseless, cruel.

"I trust you passed a comfortable night?" he asked.

"How dare you."

She said the words in a hard, clipped tone, her eyes boring a tunnel through him, and Lascelles played coy, excitement already beginning to tremble and pound in all the right places. "I beg your pardon?"

"How dare you ask that of me, as if this were any other day, or I any other woman? How can you ask it, unless you mean to mock me?"

"My dear Maria--"

"You know exactly what kind of night I passed, for you know exactly the state you left me in. Alone, sleepless. The sensation of your hands upon me, the taste of your mouth in mine. You left me to suffer. But that was your intention, wasn't it? To leave me wanting? So that I might lay awake and consider what I would lose, what I would never experience, once you left and returned to London?"

It was too close to the truth for Lascelles's comfort, and yet this new assertiveness in Maria's manner, the cold accusatory stare and the pursed lips, was having a curious effect upon him, his cock already going rigid inside his breeches. She was dazzling: as unspoiled and beautiful as a sleek-coated mare, as spirited as a leopardess. This turn of events was as unexpected as it was intoxicating.

"Well, I will not be left wanting, Henry," she continued, her hands clenching and unclenching around her reticule. "I know what I want. And if I must beg for it, I will. I have no pride left. Last night I touched myself with your name on my lips. I have no further to fall."

"Dearest Maria," Lascelles began, hiding his triumph and leaning a little forward in his seat, groaning internally at the sharpness of his arousal. "Do not think I passed a night that was anything but agony. If you only knew how it pained me -- tormented me -- to leave you last night when I did... I desire you with all of my being -- you know that I do -- but I would not dare to claim you unless you were absolutely certain--"

"I am certain." She spoke in a decided tone, without a hint of hesitation, without dropping her gaze from Lascelles's. "More certain than I have ever been of anything. If I had known-- If I had known that such a man existed -- a man with such taste and refinement, with such interests and conversation -- if I had known that such a man existed outside of novels and storybooks, I would never have attached myself--" She broke off suddenly, her teeth snapping shut, and Lascelles saw a look come into her eyes he had not seen before, a sharp, tight, flinty expression glittering with something he would almost have called malice. The sight of it excited him in a way that even their encounter the previous night had not.

"My husband is a fool," she growled. "A doddering old bore. I did not marry him for love -- how could I? -- only because my father thought it a good match, a step up in society." She gave a bitter laugh. "And what society is that, I ask you? My husband does not want to go out, he does not wish to do anything except remain sheltered in the country, sitting in that drafty old house, worrying about his sheep. His idea of an evening's entertainment is a walk around the park and supper with a few of the other local landholders -- men all as dull as himself! He speaks of nothing interesting, he has no opinions on anything that matters, and I--" She shook her head, tossing a spiral of dark hair across her cheek. "I am kept like one of the orchids in the hothouse. Something pleasing to look at but not to listen to. Trapped behind glass and stifling." 

"Perhaps I should not have known my own misery, had you not come," she continued. "But you did. And you've spoken to me and looked at me and touched me in a way my husband never has... No, Mr. Lascelles. Henry. I need no more sleepless nights to make up my mind. My decision is made." She leaned forward now and there was a breathlessness of excitement and fear in her voice. "Take me away with you. Away from this house, from this dull and unvarying life. Now. Tonight. I will go anywhere with you and never look back."

It was not completely true -- Lascelles recognized this. The malice was genuine, the resentment -- but it had taken Maria some effort, nonetheless, to call her husband those names. Doubtless Bullworth had been good to her in his own unsophisticated way. But Lascelles had given her a taste of sensual pleasures she had not experienced and, like Eve in the Garden, there was now no turning back. Lascelles had won. In his mind at that moment he could hear it with perfect clarity: the door of the gilded cage clicking open, the rushing beat of the free bird's wings.

Now to claim the sweet fruits of his victory.

He reached out, clasped one of her gloved hands with his. "If you are truly sure, Maria, I will take you away. I will take you with me and give you everything you have ever desired. Gowns, jewels--"

"I want none of those things," she interrupted, her fingers curling around his. "Don't you understand, Henry? I have gowns. I have jewels. What I want is for a man I love to take them off of me."

Artifice and genuine lust commingled in that moment, and Lascelles himself could not have identified which was uppermost in his mind. He went to his knees in the space between them, grasped Maria by the waist, and pulled her forward into a kiss which she returned with hungry vigor. Sliding his long, slender fingers beneath the brim, he pushed the bonnet back off her head, then fumbled with the knot in the ribbon as his tongue slid in unison with hers.

"Maria-- oh my dear, beautiful Maria--"

To his surprise, she put a hand on his chest and pushed him away, leaning back against her own seat. Without the bonnet he could see her face more clearly: the color was high in her cheeks, her lips swollen and wet. She held his gaze as she began to gather up the fabric of her skirts, bunching them up in her fists, pulling the cloth higher and higher and revealing the length of her long stockinged legs. She was breathing fast and harsh, her eyes dancing with light, as she paused with the skirt high on her thighs, above the bands of embroidery and ribbon that decorated the tops of her stockings, and she spread her legs, an invitation to him, though the secret of her womanhood was still hidden in the shadows of her skirt.

With a groan he didn't intend to emit, Lascelles lunged forward, burying his head between her soft thighs. This time he didn't tease: he pressed his mouth to her folds and found her wet with desire. Maria cried out, too hoarse to draw the attention of the coachmen outside, her voice gone hollow and weak with shock and pleasure and, maybe, a touch of shame. But if there was shame, the pleasure pushed it aside: she gripped Lascelles's head as he worked his tongue inside her, clawing at his hair and shoulders as he sucked at her folds, caressed the bud of nerves at the heart of her. Maria panted breathlessly, sharp little whines the only sounds she was capable of making as she  
rocked her hips instinctively against his mouth, and when he judged that she was dangerously close, Lascelles pulled quickly away. Throwing himself back into his seat he pulled her into his lap, settling one leg upon each side of him, and he held her eyes as he tore open the placket of his breeches.

"Oh Henry," Maria gasped, moving ever so slightly to get a clear look at him. Lascelles took both of her hands in turn, lifting them to his mouth and tugging off her gloves with his teeth. When her hands were bare, Maria reached down with trembling fingers and gripped his shaft, passing her hand with painful lightness up and down and up again. Lascelles watched her face with delirious pleasure as she explored his cock: how swiftly he had brought her to this wantonness, this eager willingness to caress and admire his manhood. He imagined with a smile how she had probably shrank from Bullworth's aged appendage with distaste, dreaded the sight or touch of it. What a  
contrast that mental picture made with the way she marveled at the sight of him, the way her lips were parted with a subconscious longing, the way her grip on him grew firmer, greedy, as timidity died in the face of desire.

He gripped her waist and lifted her, lowering her down upon his cock. Now she regained her voice, crying out loudly, and Lascelles shushed her with a glance at the front of the carriage and pressed a finger to her lips. Maria took his fingertip inside her mouth and sucked on it as he pulled her lower, easing himself deeper inside her womanhood. He gritted his teeth, willing himself to last though her tight warmth, the heady perfume of her scent around him, was almost too much to endure. He was nothing but throbbing heat, concentrated in that wet cleft inside her, and he began to rock up in short thrusts, his hands on her backside pulling her taut against him. Maria let her head fall back, gasping through her open mouth, her whole body trembling with the immensity of it, and Lascelles pressed his face to her clothed breasts, mouthing at the ripe nipples beneath the cloth. The carriage trundled into a pothole, bouncing Maria hard upon his lap, and the sensation wrung sharp cries from both their throats as Maria slid yet deeper upon him. This prompted her to lean forward and grip his shoulders, and with Lascelles's wordless encouragement, she began to move in rhythm with his thrusts, gradually faster as her body edged towards completion. Her arms around his neck, Maria clung to him, her face pressed against the side of his head, whimpering with hot breath as Lascelles rocked her upon his hardness. Tilting his hips he levered himself up, thrusting deeper, grinding against her soft inner flesh. Despite the coachmen, Maria gave another sharp cry and her fingers scrabbled against his scalp as she began to come. "Henry! Henry!" she yelped, throwing her head back again, seizing tight around him as pleasure took her.

"Yes!" he murmured without meaning to, grasping at the soft roundness of her backside as he felt himself coming undone. The sweetness of his triumph, the ease of it, mingled with the physical friction of their bodies, the rhythmic stimulation of his cock, to push him higher and higher into release, and his mind was suddenly awash with images: wet pomegranate seeds spilling from a silver dish over a white tablecloth, over his table; candlelight wavering on the polished surfaces of his bedchamber, over a paintbrush held in an elegant hand. His lover's hand. The painting that Bullworth valued so little that he displayed it in the dusty shadows of a third-floor corridor meant  
more to Lascelles than a thousand Persephones. Rage and pleasure and triumph and bitterness brought a sharp tang to his mouth as he gasped against Maria's breast, a sharper thrill at his core as he jerked his hips upward, pulling Maria down upon the ache of his cock. Lascelles cried out despite himself, an inarticulate stream of words, as he was set ablaze, his seed spilling in hot, merciless bursts inside Bullworth's wife, marking the territory of her anew.

The carriage rolled on but Lascelles and Maria were still, slumped against one another in a haze of heat and sweat. Lascelles moved first, pressing a kiss to her lips and easing her off of his spent cock, letting her curl herself up in his lap. She nuzzled her face in the crook of his throat and for a long time they were silent as the carriage rattled over ruts and rocks, one of the coachmen encouraging the horses across a wooden bridge with soft clicks of his tongue.

"You needn't worry," Maria murmured at length, brushing the tip of one finger over his lips.

"Worry?"

"I have been married to my husband for two years and I have never been with child. I believe I may be barren."

Lascelles thought of suggesting that perhaps Bullworth had been doing something wrong, but bit down on the impulse. It had passed his mind, this concern, though briefly: heaven only knew how many bastards he had out there, the by-blows of a night of carefree passion with a duke's daughter or a ladies' maid. It was none of his concern.

"Does it disappoint you?" Maria asked suddenly, lifting her head to look into his eyes. "That I cannot bear you a child?"

Her words jolted Lascelles for a moment. That confident expectation of a lifetime to be shared together almost made him laugh aloud. Instead he plastered on an affectionate smile and gave her a suitably maudlin answer.

"My dear Maria. All I desire is you."

She kissed his lips -- once, twice -- then nestled against him again. "How can I even bear to wait until tomorrow to be gone with you?"

"As it happens, my darling, you won't have to. I leave tonight."

Maria sat up, staring at him in disbelief. "Are you in earnest? But I thought you said--"

"I shall tell your husband that, while I was in town, I stopped at the local inn and found a message waiting, recalling me to London immediately on urgent business. Now, my dear, can you pack a few things and leave the house after sundown without anyone noticing?"

"Yes, of course. I will dismiss my maid for the evening, she will be only too happy to have a night off."

"Good. Then while I take supper with your husband, make yourself ready. Then once it is dark, make your way out to the old gatehouse and wait for me. I shall take my leave as soon as the dishes are cleared."

"Oh my darling Henry," she gushed, taking his hand and pressing kisses to his fingers. "You make me so happy. What did I do to deserve you?”

Twining one of her curls around his long fingers, Lascelles smiled. But this is nothing to do with you, dear Maria, he thought. Nothing at all. There are only two players in this game, and you are nothing but the pot, the loose coins and creased notes to be swept into hand when every move has been exhausted.

***

Upon their return to the house in late afternoon, Maria fled to her rooms before her husband could see her, feigning a return of illness. Lascelles, in the meantime, kept Bullworth occupied until supper, seeking him out first to relate how Maria’s sickness had sadly prevented them from touring the museum, then explaining how he had chanced to intercept a message for him on its way from the village to Apple Hill, recalling him to London immediately on urgent business.

“It pains me to cut yet shorter my pleasant sojourn here, but I fear I cannot delay. You do understand, I trust?”

Bullworth reluctantly conceded that he did, then assured Lascelles that his staff would do anything they could to assist Lascelles’s coachman in making ready for the departure. Once that matter was settled, Bullworth began to fret about Maria, and it was with some difficulty that Lascelles persuaded him against sending for a doctor to attend her. It was simply a matter of her having exerted herself prematurely, Lascelles assured him, digging the nails of one hand into the palm of the other to keep from smiling at the memory those words conjured. “She was quite confident that a long, uninterrupted night of rest would set her right, and she was particularly adamant that no physician should be called.”

Uneasy yet satisfied for the present, Bullworth then related briefly a summary of his meeting with Mr. Hartacre. “A complete waste of my time!” he huffed. “I have no idea what that fellow could have been playing at, but I am quite certain he was entirely mistaken concerning Mr. Carver.” Bullworth told Lascelles how the “odd” Hartacre had claimed to have met Carver in a tavern some miles distant three nights before, where Carver had drank pint after pint until he’d danced a jig upon one of the tables, then engaged the landlord in a fight that had just barely escaped coming to the notice of the constable. Having learned of the man’s identity and place of employment from  
others in the tavern, Hartacre had taken it upon himself to inform Bullworth about the dissipated behavior of so trusted and consequential an employee. But when Bullworth had pressed Hartacre for the identity of the other witnesses, for details of what Carver had said or how he had been dressed, for the name of the tavern itself, the strange man had grown considerably less loquacious and had soon made his excuses to leave.

“I can only surmise that he made up the whole sorry story to discredit poor Carver, but the possible motivation for such an act confounds me,” Bullworth concluded, shaking his head. 

“I confess, I had my suspicions about him,” Lascelles said. “His appearance did not strike me favorably. If there was anyone guilty of dissipation in this matter, I would wager it was him.”

“I’ve no doubt of it.” Bullworth let out a heavy sigh, then swept the air with his hands as if to dismiss the whole distasteful matter. “Well, let us waste no more of the time we yet have in each other’s pleasant company, Mr. Lascelles. I am greatly relieved to hear you say that you believe Maria’s condition is not serious. Though if you truly must leave us after supper, I am certain she will be most grieved to have missed bidding you farewell. I know that she has enjoyed your stay with us every bit as much as I have.”

Considerably more, Lascelles thought. “I am grateful to you both for your generous hospitality,” he said aloud. “And I do not exaggerate when I say that I have enjoyed myself thoroughly during my time here. But if you will permit it, sir, I wonder if I might discuss one final business transaction with you before I depart?”

Bullworth was clearly intrigued. “Indeed? What have you in mind?”

“There is something in your house that I have taken quite a fancy to, and I am loathe to part with it.” Lascelles could not prevent his lips from twitching slightly as he spoke. “I wonder if I might persuade you to part with it. For the right price, of course.”

***

One final supper, excruciatingly dull without Maria’s presence, and then it was done. Lascelles’s coachman had the carriage ready at ten o’clock and Lascelles bid Bullworth adieu.

The carriage rolled down the drive, stopping again at the gatehouse where a slender figure holding a small bag detached herself from the shadows and climbed inside.

“I have left all the dresses he bought me, all the jewels,” Maria told Lascelles after a breathless kiss, her eyes exceptionally bright in the light of the carriage lamps. “I will not leave myself open to accusations of thievery by his family and friends. There is nothing of his that I want. Everything I desire is here.”

Lascelles could not resist one parting glance, out the back window of the carriage, at the scene of his triumph. Soon enough, as the conveyance turned into the road and followed a bend in its winding course, the manor -- with its lit windows and smoking chimneypieces, with Maria’s gowns and jewels, with her reliable old husband and her security -- was lost to the darkness.

They made love again on the road to London.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue: The aftermath of the seduction.

Henry Lascelles had been exceptionally generous. He had given Maria Bullworth three good months.

This was longer than he had ever given to any other lover, save one. And the manner in which that affair had ended - so abruptly, with Lascelles lying half-asleep in rumpled sheets, roused by the sound of the front door closing downstairs - had shaped Lascelles into the man he was, a man who considered three months the absolute limit of time he could waste on another human being.

In truth, he had -- for the most part -- enjoyed the affair, though for the last month boredom had been the uppermost of his sensations. The thrill of the first few weeks -- the illicit pleasure of taking another man’s wife to his bed, of imagining Bullworth’s misery back in Northamptonshire while he, Lascelles, spent himself inside Maria’s warm wetness -- had naturally dissipated with the passage of time. Maria’s relative inexperience in the bedroom -- and Lascelles had found himself utterly amazed at how a man could possess so nubile a creature without enjoying her body in every conceivable way -- had added a particularly sweet element to the beginning of the affair, Lascelles having taken it upon himself to tutor Maria in all manner of carnal acts. She was a willing and apt pupil, but as her expertise increased -- and those inhibitions she clung to showed no sign of breaking -- this thrill, too, began to fade. Lascelles was still able to take his pleasure in her, as he was doing at that very moment on a late Thursday evening, thrusting with a careless, easy rhythm between her creamy thighs. But he had grown familiar with her sumptuous breasts, the curve of her hips, the length of her smooth porcelain throat, and he no longer felt the same wicked delight he had when first baring them. He needed fresh expanses of skin: breasts like untrodden hills, a dark unexplored forest between snowy legs in which he might lose himself. The exciting prospect of luring some plump, rose-cheeked chambermaid away from her duties, of despoiling the daughter of an earl in the fragrant shadows of some ornamental garden, called to him like a siren’s song. Of all the women of his acquaintance, Lascelles could not deny that Maria was the pinnacle: her beauty, her effortless charm, outshone them all. But he had had her, and that’s all there was to the matter. That game had been fairly won and it was time to start anew.

His teeth on her swollen nipple, Lascelles groaned deep in his throat as he spent, the thrill of climax thundering through his lithe frame. Then, without delay, he was out of her and rising from the bed, glancing at a nearby clock as he pulled on his breeches.

“Henry,” she murmured, confusion in her voice. She lay still, thighs spread, breasts heaving and glistening with perspiration, dark curls spilling out over the pillows. Her words with thick and husky with the heat of her arousal. “You-- you are not leaving?”

“I’m afraid I must, my dear.” He did not so much as glance at her as he threw on his shirt, not bothering to button it in his haste to depart. “Lady Bournemouth is giving a dinner this evening and I did give my word that I would attend. I shall be fashionably late, I’m afraid, but then I always am, so it shall not be commented upon.”

Maria was silent for a moment, no doubt perplexed by the abruptness of his manner. Though there was hardly a reason to be, Lascelles thought, as he seated himself in a chair to slip on his stockings. She was clever enough, in the manner of her sex: surely she could not have mistaken the meaning of his aloofness, the increasing disinterest that marked all his actions of late. If he still used her for his pleasure on occasion, well -- that was his prerogative so long as she lingered in his house. It had long since ceased to mean anything. To him, it never had.

No, that was untrue. It had meant something. He paused in pulling on the stockings, smiling in the candlelight at the thought of Bullworth, fat and pathetic in his manor, staring forlornly at the paintings he had bought with a hefty bank draft from the man who stole away his wife. Yes, now that he thought about it, that was what every climax in Maria had signified: Lascelles’s victory. His cunning. His success.

“You should have told me earlier in the day about this dinner, Henry,” she said in a small, quiet voice, stirring a little in the shadows of the bed curtains, a glimmer of bright eye and white skin. “I am not sure I can be ready to attend so quickly--”

“Oh my dear Maria, you were not invited!” Lascelles stood, taking a comb from the dressing table and passing it carefully through his hair, admiring as he did the shape of his cheekbones in the candlelight, the burnishing warmth the carnal act had given to his skin. “A woman living in scandal with her lover, whilst in the midst of divorcing her husband, attending Lady Bournemouth’s table? For myself, of course, it is of no consequence, it merely adds interest to my presence. But for you to attend?” He made a scoffing noise. “It simply wouldn’t do.”

As he strode to the door he heard her shift again on the mattress, and when she next spoke he recognized the unmistakable bite of bitterness in her voice.

“So you have taken your pleasure and now you are at liberty to depart? Have you no consideration for the state you leave me in? I was not--” She hesitated, still too delicate for distasteful terms, still too much -- Lascelles regretted to admit it -- a woman of the country. “I was not quite finished!”

Lascelles turned at the door, giving her a regretful smile through the half light. “Then you shall have to get accustomed to finishing matters to your own satisfaction, Maria. I cannot do everything for you.”

He closed the door and took a few steps, hearing a heavy object strike the wood and shatter. The handheld mirror from the dressing table, he guessed by the sound. No matter: such trifles were a dime a dozen in any good London shop. Shrugging, he went downstairs.

His valet brought his evening clothes down to the study and dressed Lascelles there. It had become his favorite room of late, a sanctuary away from Maria, a place to ruminate fondly on his triumph over Bullworth. True, he did not have his Persephone, her white limbs reaching toward a heaven that would not answer her prayers. The sculpture remained in Northamptonshire with Bullworth, a cold reminder of the goddess he had lost. But it no longer mattered. Lascelles had what he wanted, a prize above all others, and he stared at it as his valet attended him there in the study, his heart pounding a bit harder as it always did when the sight of it recalled the memories. Above the mantlepiece, a small painting. Halved pomegranates, spilling their juice-swollen seeds upon a white tablecloth. Bullworth had been only too happy to sell it to him, valuing it little and surprised by Lascelles’s interest.

“Italian painter, I believe, of little note,” Bullworth had said. “Don’t know what ever became of him. Probably did himself in or drowned drunk in some river. So many of that kind do.”

Lascelles had gotten it cheap. Bullworth had been the one who paid, and he was still paying, would continue to pay, until his dying day perhaps. So would Maria, he supposed, and payment would begin to come due as soon as he pushed her out his door. He’d given the bird freedom: whether it chose to fly or fall was up to it. It was no concern of his.

And what had he made of his own freedom? For that’s what it was, wasn’t it, his life in Bruton-street? Absolute freedom. To buy what he wanted, travel where he wished, seduce whomever he desired. Freedom to live exactly as he pleased.

Lascelles’s long fingers stilled as he adjusted his neckcloth, a sudden moment of contrary insight invading his mind as he looked at his former lover’s painting. Freedom, he realized, was the door of a bird cage opening, and a front door closing. Freedom was tangled sheets in a large bed occupied by one.

He heard another door at that moment, slamming upstairs, and he slid his arms into his coat, a sumptuous blue like Maria’s eyes in the candlelight. Well, at least it would serve as a reminder of her. He collected things like that, things that reminded him of his victories. Of people he had hurt, people he had pushed away.


End file.
